News Broadcasting
Fox Television acquires KTVU-TV FOX 2 and KICU-TV 36; offers to pay $10 million for Seattle’s KBCB TV
BENGALURU: Fox Television Stations (FTS) announced that it has acquired San Francisco-Bay Area stations KTVU-TV FOX 2 and KICU-TV 36 following the close of its previously announced swap agreement with Cox Media Group (CMG).
The company’s parent 21st Century Fox has agreed to pay $10 million (about Rs 60 crore) to buy KBCB TV station in Seattle, in a move that follows a general strategy to buy stations in cities with National Football League (NFL) franchises.
With the addition of the San Francisco-Bay area stations, FTS now includes duopolies in seven of the top 10 US markets. FTS also now owns stations in 12 markets with National Football Conference (NFC) teams, allowing it to further leverage the Company’s NFC broadcast package.
In exchange for the newly-acquired stations, FTS transferred two owned-and-operated stations, WHBQ-TV FOX 13 and WFXT-TV FOX 25, located in the Memphis and Boston markets, respectively to CMG. Both stations will remain FOX affiliates, says FTS.
KBCB TV is a station owned by Venture Technologies Group. Seattle has a NFL team – the Seattle Seahawks and Fox sees value in owning TV stations in markets with an NFC team.
But acquiring the station may help Fox gain leverage to get what it really wants: KCPQ-TV Seattle, a much bigger station owned by Tribune Corp. KCPQ-TV is Fox’s current affiliate in the region and airs Seahawks games says a report by Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) Joe Flint.
Flint in his report says that Fox has held talks with Tribune about trading one of its stations elsewhere in the US in exchange for KCPQ—at one point Fox even put a Chicago station on the table, though that offer no longer stands. But so far the talks have gone nowhere and have gotten increasingly acrimonious, according to people familiar with the talks. Fox informed Tribune last month that it would terminate the companies’ affiliation agreement for KCPQ-TV Seattle next January.
That will leave the Tribune station without Fox programming, including sports and prime-time entertainment, and could cause its ratings to dive. Industry observers say that move and the KBCB-TV purchase are aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Tribune to do a swap deal.
News Broadcasting
Times Network to air JVC Exit Poll across 5 regions on April 29
Four-hour broadcast spans states and Puducherry with data-led analysis
MUMBAI: Times Network is set to roll out what it calls one of its most expansive election programming efforts yet, culminating in the JVC Exit Poll on 29 April, with a multi-hour broadcast spanning key poll-bound regions.
The exit poll will air across Times Now and Times Now Navbharat, beginning at 5pm and 4pm respectively. Co-powered by Vedanta and Jindal Stainless, the programming aims to combine on-ground reportage with data-driven projections across West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.
The network has deployed over 50 journalists across these regions, gathering voter sentiment and local insights in the run-up to polling. The effort builds on its ongoing election formats such as Election Yatra and Election Premier League, which have tracked campaign narratives and community-level issues.
In parallel, Times Now Navbharat has focused on constituency-level reporting in West Bengal through its Jan Gan ka Mann series, capturing voter opinions across diverse segments.
The coverage has also featured interviews with prominent political leaders. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Congress leaders Ramesh Chennithala and V D Satheesan have appeared on the network’s election specials. From Tamil Nadu, voices including deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran, BJP leader K Annamalai and NTK’s Seeman have also featured in discussions.
On the day of the exit poll, the network’s primetime anchors, including Navika Kumar, Zakka Jacob and Sumit Awasthi, will lead the coverage. They will be joined by a panel of political analysts, psephologists and senior journalists offering real-time insights and interpretation of trends.
The programming will integrate grassroots reportage with analytics from the JVC Exit Poll, aiming to give viewers an early sense of electoral outcomes ahead of the official results on 4 May.
With its combined English and Hindi broadcast reach, Times Network is positioning this effort as a comprehensive look at voter sentiment, blending field reporting, data and debate to decode what could lie ahead when the final mandate is revealed.
